Pasture photo standards for increased budgeting accuracy
Miva Station, located on the Mary River just north of Gympie, has been in the Atherton since settlement in 1861. The land types of the property vary from large areas of gum-topped box to vast expanses of blue gums on alluvial clays. The property is used for producing sugarcane, beef cattle and timber.
Today, the strategic direction and management of Miva Station is the responsibility of Debbie Atherton and her adult children, in particular, her son John, as they strive to upgrade infrastructure and improve grazing land management. A key component of this aspect of their endeavour is ensuring stocking rate is matched to pasture supply in the paddocks with the recently upgraded and improved infrastructure.
“In the past, the stocking rate on Miva had been estimated and adjusted retrospectively in accordance with the previous generations’ grazing experience. But, when I came back to assist with management, I didn’t have the previous experiences to fall back on” explained John. “Forage budgeting provides an objective and reliable way to calculate feed availability and adjust stocking rates moving forward no matter what the season may hold.”
The beef extension team from the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) connected John with the total standing dry matter pasture photo standard resources available on FutureBeef.
“After attending a Grazing Resilience and Sustainable Solutions workshop with the DPI and our local natural resource management group in early 2025, we elected to have a soil conservation expert and beef extension officers come out to visit the property. We gained a lot from this experience — one particular benefit being exposure to a solid forage budgeting template and total standing dry matter pasture photo standards,” explained John.
At a following visit to the property, the local DPI extension officers demonstrated how to conduct pasture yield cuts and use the pasture yield photo standards, enabling John to get his eye in for use on his country.
“I strongly believe that the quality of the input determines the quality of the output, so I wanted to make sure that the figures used as the opening balance of the annual forage budget were as accurate as possible,” John continued. “The pasture yield photo standards from FutureBeef have been very helpful for that.”
The Atherton family continue to work towards their goals of land condition improvement and greater breeder efficiency.
Pasture yield photo standards for each region of Queensland are available on the FutureBeef website, along with the following articles: